Avoid

To annul; cancel; to destroy the efficacy of anything.

' 1. To cause to be or become empty: to render useless or void; to make inoperative or of no effect; to nullify. Opposed, affirm, confirm. Avoidance. Setting aside; nullifying; rendering of no effect.* Compare Void. Some authorities assert that an infant's deed cannot be avoided except by an act equally solemn with the deed itself; some that it cannot be done by anything short of an entry; others that it maybe done simply by another deed delivered to a dif Eerent grantee. All agree, however, that acts which would be insxifficient to avoid such a deed may amount tO' an affirmance,^ q. v. 3. In pleading, to repel the consequence or inference which would logically follow a failure to deny the truth of an averment. More fully, to "confess and avoid." Matter of avoidance. New matter which adniits the declaration to be true, but shows, either that the defendant was never liable to the recovery claimed against him or that he has never been discharged from his original hability by something supervenient, s See further Confession, 1.

To render void. " How a deed may be avoided, or rendered of no effect." 2 BLCom, 308.

In pleading. To evade, or escape. A party may confess and avoid the allegations in his adversary's pleading. Steph. Pi. 68. See Avoidance.